What's the court of law?

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2007)

While I may not feel guilt about wanting to see this film perhaps to feed on my lasciviousness for the Danish mammaries and rear end of Scarlett Johansson, as a thinking person I felt apprehensive having to entertain watching a Michael Bay film. A man known to be a confector of action films with so much pomp and zero gravitas.
At trailer's glance you can perhaps learn to slacken off on that notion. The Island has one of sci-fi's best and most thought provoking themes in the area of Bio-ethics. And perhaps how high society and the men in power would take advantage and go as far as disregarding the sacredness of human life.
The film, as many say starts out at a rather slow pace, but that's because - unlike for the stupid man many of us Michael Bay make him out to be, it turns out he gives room for exposition and establishing certain elements. But at 0:45:00 in its duration, the film picks up speed and never lets up, but at the same time never compromises the theme it explores about the powers of a Utopian institution looking for 2 people on the run. In all fairness, yes I do find too much bombast in the way Michael Bay directs, and perhaps the word minimalism doesn't apply to him at all - but if you come up with a decent high concept plot and marry it with that regalia of nonstop action, you get something highly watchable and riveting, such as this film.
It's nice to see Sean Bean play an "intellectual villain" rather than a terrorist or someone associated with the mafia. Buscemi is as usual. McGregor? Yes his acting falters in and every time he tries to sell being an "American" character - but when he uses his Scottish accent later in the film for reasons you just have to watch this for, the acting improves and any faults heretofore can be overlooked. It's also interesting that they incorporated a real commercial for a Calvin Klein perfume with Scarlett Johansson in it, into the movie.
If you've bumped into Michael Bay's pompous Bad Boys 2, or films with unnecessarily effusive histrionics as Pearl Harbor or Armageddon, that is OK, because The Island has all these in them that can absolve you of some biases and just enjoy the ride, genuinely this time.
7/10